The Truth ✔

Chapter 29 ~

*Warning- This chapter contains sensitive content *

Kaleb's POV

"You wasted your time dating her. She already belongs to someone." Austin, Layla's stepbrother, says to me before walking off. We all sit there in confusion not understanding.

I know the bell is about to ring for first period, but I don't care. I need to know the truth from Layla. I need to know what is going on. I grab Layla's hand without saying anything and pull her outside to my car. She is still shaking in fear. I hate seeing her like this. I know I'm probably not helping the situation, but I need to know what the hell is going on. As we get to my car, Layla's back is against my car as myself and all of our friends make a circle around her where she can't escape us.

Every single one of my friends have fear and confusion written on their faces. I'm sure they all feel hurt like I do. If what Austin said was true, then she chose to live with her father. She knew that he would beat her, and that's the life she picked. But what's bothering me more is what Austin said before walking away. 'You wasted your time dating her. She already belongs to someone.' What fuck did he mean by that?

"Layla, what the hell is going on? Tell us the truth, Layla. I need to know the truth." I plead. "Why would you choose to live with your dad? You said you didn't have a brother. And please for heaven's sake, tell me what he meant by you already belong to someone?" I have a mixture of emotions going through me and it takes everything in me to keep them in check.  The last thing I want is to get angry with her.

Tears roll down her cheek as she gulps. "Y-you wouldn't understand. N-No one ever understands." She whimpers as she slides down the side of my car to the ground.

"Did you really choose to live with you dad knowing he would beat you?" Whitney asks. Tears still fall from Layla's eyes as she is in deep thought before she stares up at Whitney and nods her head. Whitney expression changes to one of hatred. "What the hell, Layla? Our families stepped in to save you, but you chose that life." Whitney hisses. "You could have had a good life, but you choose to live with your dad. Why did you lie to us, huh?" Whitney screams bending down and getting into Layla's face.

Daniel quickly grabs Whitney to pull her back. "Let go of me , Daniel." She screams. "Why Layla? Why did you lie to us? And you already belong to someone? Were you just playing my cousin? You don't care about Kaleb at all do you?"

I don't even know what to do. What if Whitney is right? What if Layla doesn't care for me? I shake the thought from my head as Layla stands up and glares at Whitney.

Layla is shaking again, but this time it's in anger. "You're right, Whitney. The best part of my fucking day was getting beat by my father. Is that what you want me to say? Huh?" Layla screams. "Let me just tell you how much fun it is to get beaten so badly that you have no clue if you will live to see the next day. Or maybe you want me to tell how much I love hearing my father call me a whore, slut and telling me to go kill myself because I'm a waste of space.  Oh, and you wouldn't believe how amazing it is to not be allowed to eat. I absolutely enjoyed trying to find scraps of food that wouldn't even be enough for a mouse. " We all just stand there flabbergasted at Layla's outburst.  I know Layla had it bad, but she has never told us details before.

"You have no fucking clue what I've gone through. You live in your big fancy houses with parents that love you. Both of my parents fucking hate me. My mother, if she even deserves that title, would do anything for my stepdad and stepbrother, including arranging for me to marry Austin's best friend for a business deal. I chose to live with my dad because at least if I lived to be eighteen then I would have freedom. I would have a life. Do you know how many times I wanted to die? How many times I prayed for it to just all end. But like always,  I was never so lucky." Layla turns arounds punching my car as hard as she can, causing her hand to start bleeding.

"I'm a person. I shouldn't belong to anyone. I should have people around to support me and love me, but oh please forgive me for being born to people who could never show me love or give a rat's ass about my wellbeing. I never lied to any of you. You asked me if I was my dad's only child, and I am. That devil who claims to be my brother is nothing to me. I never asked any of you to save me. I told y'all to leave me alone." Layla grabs her backpack and shoves past Jake and Summer. She then turns around and faces me. "I knew better than to trust you. I knew better than to fall for you, but I let you get inside of my head. Trusting you was the biggest mistake I ever made. I thought you cared about me, but I can tell by the look on your face, Kaleb, that you're judging me too. Fuck you, Kaleb. Fuck all of you." She screams with so much anger but also pain.

I'm frozen to my spot still trying to figure out what just happened. I'm so lost in my staring at where Layla was standing just moments ago, that I don't realize she's gone.

"What the hell is wrong with y'all?" Connor growls. "Are y'all really that fucked up in the head to think she would really choose to live with that bastard of a father without having good reason to?"

"She lied to us." Whitney snaps back.

Connor glares at her. "What the fucked crawled up your ass today? She never lied to any of us. Can you really not see how broken of a person she it?" Connor then looks at me. "And you... you just let her run off? You've fucking lost your mind if you think she doesn't care for you."

"How?" I ask.

"How what?" He growls.

"How do you know that she cares for me?"

"You're not the only one who has paid attention to her since freshman year. I've watched her too. She's been trying to survive. She's never been happy until you, and you just let her walk away even more broken than before."

"Fuck." I growl realizing the mistake I just made. "I have to find her." I say as I start to panic.

"Give me your keys." Connor says running to the driver side of my car

"What?"

"You're in no position to drive. Give me your damn keys."

I toss him the keys as Whitney walks over to me. "K-Kaleb, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean to say those things to Layla. Just I've never seen you so happy before and the thought of you getting hurt upset me. If there's anything I can do to help let me know."

"Help me find her before something happens to her." Whitney nods her head and runs over to Daniel's car. While Summer and Winter gets into Jake's truck.

As Connor starts to pull out of the parking lot my phone starts ringing. "Hello?"

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A/N: Song at top doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the chapter.  I was just listening to it as I wrote it out.

Like always, comment, vote and follow me!  ~KarenJ128~